Today Mary Kay Inc., with $2.5 billion in annual retail sales, is second only to Avon as a direct seller of beauty products. But Ash, who died in her Dallas home on Nov. 22 at age 83, was best known for the exotic incentives—from diamond jewelry to pink Cadillacs—she offered her company's fleet of mostly female salespeople (850,000 in 37 countries). "Mary Kay," says motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, a longtime friend, "made people see themselves as winners."
Ash never had that problem herself. Married at 17 because she couldn't afford college, the Hot Wells, Texas, native raised three kids—Marylyn, who died in 1991; Ben, 65, a retired investor; and Richard, 58, Mary Kay Inc.'s chairman and CEO—while also working in sales for Stanley Home Products.
Divorced in 1943, Ash supported her family as a single mother until her 1963 marriage to George Hallenbeck. He died that same year, just one month before Ash launched her company with products based on formulas once used to tan leather. "They smelled like a skunk, but they made my skin so soft," Ash said.
Widowed again after third husband Mel Ash died in 1980, Ash had several strokes in the last five years. But she still kept an eye on her empire. Watching a video of a recent Mary Kay convention, says son Richard, she became teary-eyed. "She realized her dream was continuing," he says. "That made her so happy."
Saved by the Bell Reunion
The hookups, the meltdowns, the memoires
The case reveals what was really going on what they think of each other now!
